The Origins of the Carolinian Sidereal Compass

Michael Halpern

Thesis: May 1985

Chair: Bass

Nautical Archaeology Program

The sidereal compass of the Caroline Islanders is a conceptual tool that organizes navigation knowledge and
permits long-distance voyaging and accurate landfalls without the use of instrumentation. Remnants and hints of
similar systems are reported all across the Pacific while descriptions and representations of a similar compass
are extant in old Arab nautical texts. These resemblances have alternately been ascribed to independent invention
and diffusion.

Tropical sidereal navigation in general is examined and the current state of knowledge of the various compasses
described. A theoretical framework for the evaluation of diffusionist versus inventionist arguments is developed
and a set of criteria is presented. The Carolinian and Arab compasses are analyzed from a temporo-astronomical
standpoint in an attempt to reveal any past conjunctions. We will give these data a cultural context by tracing
the broad movements of peoples in the Indo-Pacific region and comparing cultural similarities, differences, and
possibilities of contact. It is concluded that Arab navigation was probably influenced by that of Austronesian
seafarers in the Indian Ocean, though not directly by Carolinians, after the former had begun to elaborate an incipient
sidereal compass. The underlying unity of Oceanic navigational traditions is also affirmed.